Fixing doll hair

Mainly here on Hair-Bun we focus on human or synthetic hair, which are used by humans. But a while back we got an interesting email coming in, asking us if its possible to fix the synthetic hair on dolls or other toys, when the hair is in a bad condition, greasy or even sticky.

Fortunately yes, there is a way to do this! And its very simple as well. So lets get to it.

How to fix doll hair

When your doll’s hair is messy and looking horrible, there’s a simple way to fix this. All you will need is:

Two bowls that you will be putting the dolls hair into

Hot water (boiling temperature)

Fabric softener

A comb

A towel to dry the doll’s hair with

First thing you need to do is comb the doll’s hair trough, starting from the roots and working your way upwards. This takes out any tangles that could cause possible trouble.

Next you need to heat the water until it boils and pour it into the first bowl. Dip the dolls hair into it, take it out and comb it trough again – starting from the ends and working your way upwards. Repeat this about 5-6 times until the doll’s hair lose the wavyness and start looking straight.

Towel dry the doll’s hair and pour a cup of fabric softener into the second bowl. Dip the doll’s hair into it and leave it like that for about 30 minutes. Once the time is up, take the doll out of the fabric softener and rinse the doll’s hair in lukewarm water.

Towel dry the hair again, and leave the doll in a standing position, so the hair would be in a natural downward-flowing position. This helps the hair to achieve the desired shape.

If you’ve pulled out some of the hair from the doll’s head with combing and wish to not pull out any more, then do not dip the doll’s actual head into the hot water but just the hair. Why you ask? The hot water softens the glue that holds the doll’s hair in place, inside the doll’s head. If you put it in contact with hot water, you’d have the hair becoming loose and just falling out.

Cutting doll hair

You can comb the doll’s hair trough when it’s still wet. If you want you can cut the dry and split ends off at this moment, as the hair is wet and easy to work with. Be sure to cut less than you want at first, because you’ll always have the option to trim off more hair, but putting the hair back as it was might turn out to be impossible.

Dying the doll’s hair

As we all know, doll hair is synthetic and therefore no dye in the world will stick to it. While dyeing dark hair can turn out to be a challenge (unless you use chalk dyes), dyeing blonde or light synthetic hair is simple. The best way to dye a doll’s hair is with markers!

Take a colorful marker – let’s say black and turquoise – and dye the roots of the doll black, one section of hair at the time. You can dye the bottom half of the hair turquoise, and make the doll look like Kylie Jenner!

Styling the doll’s hair

If you want to style the hair flat, you need to wet the doll’s hair and make the hair dry in a position to get it to stay that way. As an exmple, you can wet the hair, and make the doll stand up in a tall cup to have it’s hair dry in that position.

For curls, you’ll need some drinking straws and hair pins. You can wet the doll’s hair a bit to make it easier to work with, take a strand of hair and wrap it around a straw, then fixate it with the hairpin to stay that way. Once you’ve finished with applying the “rollers”, you need to wet the doll’s hair and again leave it to dry while standing up, so the hairstyle would look as natural as it can.

The hair needs to dry about 12-24 hours, so it becomes fully dry. Once they’re dry, take out the straws one by one, in a downward motion, and do not comb the curls trough unless that’s the style you’re aiming for. Other than that, you’re done!